​The Village of Woodridge, IL regularly receives questions from residents related to property taxes. Whether this is related to understanding their tax bill or where their money is going, these questions can be answered more effectively with a visualization that residents can understand and that staff can easily explain. It was this need that initiated the development of a custom layer for the village’s online mapping application, MapOffice™, which would allow a resident to see a full breakdown of their property tax information.

This custom layer was developed by the village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) department using tax information provided by DuPage County and Will County that consists of the tax rate owed to each taxing body by tax code. This information was combined with parcel data that was also provided by the county and charted. The end result is a custom layer that allows a resident to click on a parcel and see their total tax rate, as well as a chart that shows the composition of this total tax rate by the tax rate of each taxing body. This allows users to easily find differences in taxing from one property to the next, and to understand how these differences are attributed to taxing districts. This custom layer can also be used as a tool for village staff to reference when answering questions related to property taxes.